This paragraph from the Bloomberg article gives the mechanics:
Here’s the catch: The IRS doesn’t penalize earnings from insurance companies, which it considers to be “active” businesses. As a result, by routing money through a Bermuda reinsurer, which in turn puts its assets back into their own hedge funds, fund managers can defer any taxes until selling the stake. They then pay only the lower capital gains tax rate.
Figuring out how each one of these loopholes works is a major study and that's why lobbyists demand and write them into legislation. Takes forever to figure out how they even work.
Look at the news today, some ridiculous "Giving Pledge" where the oligarchs donate their wealth that they make through visa abuses, derivatives, insider information/deals, political corruption, crony capitalism, etc. But in order to varnish their images after destroying hardworking Americans and others across the globe, they donate money in their own names to charities, in addition to naming charities and foundations after themselves.
Save the charitable donations and self-love, how about you don't steal or make the billions on the backs of struggling and utterly destroyed fellow citizens? How about Bill Gates, you let Americans actually find jobs in their own country and make enough to feed themselves and one or two kids without demanding even more cheap labor? How about the Oracle of Omaha doesn't have annual conventions to kiss his ass and avoids making billions on insider deals with Goldman and the US Government? These vultures get rich off the flesh of their own Nation and have the nerve to donate their ill-gotten wealth in their own names to make themselves appear benevolent. No more.
Oligarchs' charitable giving? Pablo Escobar also gave to certain segments of Colombia and made sure people knew who did it, did that erase his actions? But that use of wealth, power, and making sure people knew his name when the donations were made sure does have a familiar ring.
If the SEC manages to set a rule to limit derivatives, it appears there is a favorite court in D.C. which is more than willing to strike it down. Death by a 1000 cuts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, located in a little-noticed limestone-and-concrete building situated one block northwest of the Capitol, is where securities rules go to die.
The millions of seniors that were booted out of the workforce as the economic recession began to squeeze businesses for profits is a study that I would love to see. Age descrimination is truly rampant. A once proud, hard working mass of seniors have been slaughtered in the last 5 years.
The sad fact is that older employees became the number one target when it became time to reduce a companys workforce. Most of these unemployed terminated seniors had great value regarding work ethic and skills. Then why would the older employee be cut of out of the work force.
Cold hard profits!!!
Age cannot be suspended or reversed. Data clearly reflects more health costs as a person enters their senior years. A high number of these senior employees had given their blood, sweat and tears to improve their skills and upward mobility within their company thus....they were among the higher paid employees within most companies. The EEOC of our government is a joke when it comes to enforcing age descrimination. Millions of us out here have had our pride and spirit severly damaged by their companys cunning and unlawful processes that were used for termination or layoff.
Our naivety that we would be treated fairly through these tough times was our largest mistake. The burden of proof has shifted to the employee to prove age descrimination. We did not see it coming. We had no idea our employer would be so ruthless and unerhanded in their tactics to avoid any age descrimination repercussion. We didn't carry a hidden voice recorder as our employer harassed us and made false accusations about our performance. We failed to collect documentation that would clearly show the employer using false and harassing tactics to build their case of termination. We were under the old patriotic mindset that the U.S.A. would never allow greedy Corporations to target the older generation knowing the they were the most vulnerable. Many of us have gone through the trauma and embarassment that we can no longer be the proud provider for our families and are beginning to get our spirit back. Our numbers are large...millions of us babyboomers! I for one will be involved in activities that will change the way our older generation is treated. Seniors are not dummies and we are not going to lay down and watch our country make a mockery of itself.
Yet more non-shocking, but completely repulsive news: these crooks aka "managers" and "best and brightest" are setting up reinsurance companies in Bermuda to help them avoid taxes in the US. The link's at the bottom.
Yes, that's right, hedge fund managers now of all a sudden are interested in the reinsurance game. The funny thing about that (besides the obvious fact that insurance used to have nothing to do with hedge funds and banksters) is that AIG was also a big reinsurance player, was actually involved in the game (not strictly for tax purposes), linked to Bermuda, and still faced destroying the entire global economy unless we, the taxpayers, bailed it out.
But now we have billionaire idiots that can't beat market indexes, earning billions in management fees, and are getting into "insurance" in tax havens for a very obvious purpose of avoiding US taxes. Oh, to top it off, their entry into the actual reinsurance game puts us all, again, at very real risk because INSURANCE and REINSURANCE aren't supposed to be tools for tax evasion, but are actually supposed to be safe, conservative backups when things go wrong for people and businesses that rely on it. No taxes, companies and individuals brazenly evading US taxes by setting up sham or legitimate companies meant solely to avoid taxes, money laundering?, and endangering the global economy once again. How are these not sham companies and transactions a la Enron and KPMG and Arthur Andersen? Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime, because close to 30 million of us here never evaded taxes, never laundered money, but we can't afford to feed ourselves or families and we're scum? Screw this circus, it's vomit-inducing.
And of course regulators, bankster-owned media, big law firms, politicians, and anyone else in the corruption game will say it's all legal and fine because of a "lack of clarity" or it's not illegal at the same time demanding less regulation and fewer laws and ethics because rules, laws, ethics, and enforcement only hurt tax-evading banksters and job killers. $1 billion? Damn, these assclowns begrudge people that want to earn $30,000, or $50,000, or $60,000 for jobs that actually help other people or create real value, but not paying $1 in taxes is too much for them?
Our esteemed politicians have essentially outsourced the middle class. The low end, high school educated blue collar workers, or whats left of them at least, are in a special protected class called Unions and still making a good living. But the white collar professional types, formerly making nice six figure salaries have been outsourced due to Nafta other new world order multinational agreements. They did everything they were supposed to - got into a good college, studied hard, and graduated with a difficult technical degree. But today its all for not. Engineers with 20 years experience are booted to the curb as their parent companies move work to China or India. I've heard stories through executive search firms of how highly educated and experienced professionals (Masters level and PhDs) simply cant find a job. These folks are in their prime earning years and should be contributing to the growth of the economy. Now they are relegated to working in Starbucks or Boston Market as managers. Where are the politicians fighting for them? Where are the sad news stories about a masters level educated mechanical engineer out of work for 4 years as his firm went global with its R&D department. As I see it, the unemployment jobs numbers are vastly worse than they are being reported by the media, as its now the media's job to clothe their emperor.
The only thing politicians care about are votes. If you aren't part of a constituent group then you might as well not vote because your vote doesn't count. Today, its the Democrats who are garnering votes en masse - the unions, minorites, illegal aliens - and these numbers are substantial enough (with the help of the media of course) to sway elections. Middle class Americans might as well forget about it, your politicians arent looking out for you, you're not part of a tightly shoehorned constituency class.
There is a cognitive dissonance between what i see and hear personally versus what is reported on tv. I simply cant watch the economic euphoria they report about and then talk to business owners and well paid professionals who simply cant make ends meet anymore. 10 years ago these folks would be buying boats and vacationing in Europe. Today we are worried about paying bills and saving for the kids college. Eventually something in the economy is going to break and this whole artificial economy the Fed has created is going to come crashing down. I just cant wait what excuse Obama and the media will create to blame it all on the House Republicans.
Regulators were so involved with Wall Street that possibly if lawsuits were filed in criminal court the regulators would also be found guilty. We need an independent commission and courts free of politics and corruption, but that is a dream.
This grumpy old Perotista didn't see the whole picture until recently. I was always culturally, conservative, fiscally libertarian, and suspicious of power in the hands of government or industry.
Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act didn't FORCE banks to lend to welfare queens. It was Classic Clinton - the deal looked like populism but favored condo flippers. Paul Harvey said in one of his last broadcasts - that of the 14 trillion in sub prime loans - a full 11trillion were the result of speculation. Again.... classic Clinton.
He's the one who brokered the meltdown and looting of America. That was followed by the abomination we know as the Bush/Cheney years.
I went to the polls those years to vote for fringe candidates and NO retain all judges.
When I finally voted Obama - it turned out to be date rape. I'm not gay or illegal l- so nothing for me or mine.
Just so you know - I am not a wage slave. This is the political point of view of a life long self employed Main St merchant. I've watched as malls hike rents on independents to subsidize this week's Anchor Blue or Shoe Pavillion - only to have those "national's go bankrupt.
Our entire way of life has been a lie. This corn fed boomer swallowed it whole - even as the lives of those around me followed the downward spiral of corporatism and police state tyranny.
I would call my politics now Anarchism. I root for bank robbers and cop killers... yes, I wanted Dorner to escape, if only to spotlight the pathology of those who gravitate to 'enforcement' work.
Not only are we prisoners to the "all war all the time" model, we must also be afraid of returning sociopaths - who now police our roads and airports.
So anybody who resists the multi national recipe for prosperity for the 1% - has few options to resist the tyranny.
And THIS is the rambling of a somewhat prosperous entrepreneur. I'm still standing - and my children are safely self employed in the economies of San Francisco and Denver.
If this 65 year old bedrock citizen roots for those who would burn the place to the ground.... what of the disposable worker?
Something to ponder as we await more heroes like Dorner.
If Glass-Steagall was in place and most importantly, they finally banned certain derivatives which clearly have contagion, system risk baked right into them in part due to faulty models (CDS), this disaster would have never happened.
This is not a business cycle, or normal ebb and flow, but a financial sector generated disaster which they actually lobbied Congress for and got around 2000.
It is astounding considering the damage done that these people were not tarred and feathered globally. They didn't even lose their jobs and they are busy setting up the same rigged house of cards again. They trashed the global economy for Christ sakes and "Dodd-Frank" is the result? Are you kidding me?
Henry Ford got it. $5/day was a revolution in wages back in 1914. It was the act of one corporatist who really started the ball rolling. He got one needed a middle class, disposable income to buy a car and that could only come from much higher wages.
Walmart started the race to the bottom on wages and it's no surprise the chickens have come home to roost. No union, no health care, making sure people work "32 hours" so they cannot get full-time status and benefits...
As we look at economic statistics everyday there is one thing that is really outrageous. Americans are viewed as consumers instead of producers. There is a disconnect in economic statistics on wages, income, wealth of the U.S. worker to consumer spending. Wall Street will bemoan when consumer spending drops and there will not be a word about wages, jobs, income for the American worker in their whine. Wall Street cheers when layoffs are announced, buys up more stock when companies offshore outsource.
In the future these times will be seen as a fantastic study in money controlling the debate. Banksters are deemed the "best and brightest" despite the endless failures and bailouts they require, to say nothing of their actual crimes. But anyone asking that money managers and CEOs that screw up, lose money, and need taxpayer $ to survive actually be held accountable, lose their jobs, and not earn such ridiculous sums of money are labeled "Commies," "hippies," and "lazy." Now this comes from people that were often born into wealthy and connected political circles that often feed at the government trough (e.g., political families that have endless generations in both D & R). But their families still deny cronyism and nepotism aid them.
Look at salaries. Banksters and their press always claim they deserve everything. If they get a bonus even though they screw up and destroy companies, it's because they deserve it. If they have jobs in which they get 4 weeks vacation and never break a sweat (literally), it's because they are so much smarter. If they earn $1 billion as fund managers, it's because they deserve it and are working "smarter."
Compare that to the minimum wage debate. Look at the wages needed to barely survive in cities across the country. At a bare minimum probably $12/hr. for one person living in hellhole apt. that excludes entire areas of the country that must be within walking distance of a job. But if he dares complain or people say the wage is too low, the response from the establishment/banksters is stop whining, get another job, work smarter/harder, work your way up. They honestly don't care that hours are purposely kept down to avoid benefits. That people can't get second jobs when their 1st job requires on-call commitments. That jobs that pay so little often cause injuries that bankrupt people with no benefits.That people didn't plan on working for less than $8/hr. when they invested their lives and time in Masters and PhDs. That someone didn't know they would be fired and be deemed "overqualified" at 40 when they got married and had one kid (yes, these folks actually bemoan people for having a kid and being unable to predict they would be unemployed at some point in life). That managers purposely fire people if they start making too much money or don't hire people that might rise in the ranks in the first place.
The message is the same - the banksters at the top are the best and brightest despite the fact they screw up, break laws, fail all the time, and need handouts from taxpayers. And the average person that wasn't born into connections and doesn't break laws or ever lobby Congress (even simple letters are ignored) is always lazy, always ignorant, always begging for handouts even when he/she literally collects nothing from the Government and can't convince anyone in power to care.
Tell a lie long enough and control entire media empires and people will start buying it, especially when the oligarchs do everything they can to keep people unemployed and desperate to survive.
We're finally seeing the endgame now. Walmart is shocked, shocked I tell you, by a dismal quarter. And of course the Walmart folks no doubt blame regulations or uncertainty. Of course they absolutely ignore the fact that a country where it's impossible for a massive % of people to find jobs, stay employed, and survive will, at some point, stop shopping. Pretty simple concept. But that will be ignored. It's always uncertainty, always too many taxes, profit issues (despite recent record profits by US companies), etc. Nope, "American" companies simply refuse to acknowledge that 28+ million people without jobs and no hope actually do affect the bottom line. And when those people don't earn money or enough to survive and the tax base disappears, then yes, Walmart at some point must face the obvious truth: corporate tactics destroy lives and the bottom line for companies too. Almost forgot, anyone in jail from Walmart for bribing Mexican officials?
I'm sure their corporations are trying to claim now Singapore is full of stupid, fat and lazy people, as they tell us here in America and that's the reason they must fire their citizens and replace them with foreign guest workers.
It is a global agenda, to labor arbitrage and displace, as well as a clear objective of India. They think labor arbitrage is "services" and displacing citizen workers is "trade". Trading people is not trade, unless one wants to look at the slave trade.
We can have millions protesting but it is to no avail. Remember the orchestrated shutdown of OWS?
Look at Singapore, a very, very tightly controlled dictatorship city-state. Folks out there are so pissed they are actually protesting (which is very dangerous to one's safety in most dictatorships). Oh, why are they pissed? Because they can't find jobs, there aren't enough jobs for citizens, and the government wants to import more foreign workers. But, but, but I thought only "racist" and "xenophobic" American citizens (not sure how people of all colors and histories can be deemed "racist" without justification, but why bother asking questions) cared about border control, illegals, and actually having jobs for local citizens. Nope, it seems border control, labor arbitrage, and governments actually serving the citizens of nations has nothing to do with racism and xenophobia, but actually has to do with governments looking out for their own citizens. Are the citizens of Singapore racist? Greece? Spain? America? Nope, Americans and Greeks and Spaniards and Singaporeans of all colors know their governments are supposed to serve them, and them alone. And it seems politicians around the world also swear oaths to the same effect. And all the BS one-world, elitism rules, banksters get rich while the 99% in every country get screwed is being called out for what it is, the rich and powerful screwing their own citizens and not batting an eye about it because they admit they are in it for profits and themselves only. So, do we as average Americans have more in common with the displaced and replaced Singaporeans and Greeks or with the folks in Congress and trading on insider information and making billions on Wall Street and in DC and every state capitol building?
Why just last week Lloyd Blankfein of Government Sachs or Goldman Sux was meeting with Obama and helping sell out American workers in the name of "immigration reform" and "fiscal cliff talks."
But I guess Goldman is still doing "God's Work" aka operating a criminal cartel. Because Goldman is connected to an account in Zurich that just got frozen by the SEC pending an investigation into insider trading. Apparently Goldman was recommending a "sell" to its clients on Heinz, when just before the Heinz merger, massive call options were purchased in a Zurich Goldman account.
Aren't the crimes by Goldman numbering in the hundreds or thousands by now? And yet they are still allowed to exist and conduct business and dictate our Nation's policies. What's crime and criminality anyway, it's all about $ and access and self-serving politicians getting rich (as yet another Congressman was busted for using $750,000 in campaign cash to buy all sorts of crap). Politicians and Wall Street - they never worry about anything even when they break laws and get rich at our expense. The only people suffering are the good, honest people that did everything they were supposed to. So why bother behaving anymore? Just get screwed in the end anyway unless . . .
This is more morphing of one type of derivative into another to avoid regulation and less margin requirements. It's akin to 1929 having margin accounts of 95%. People could buy stocks with 5% down and buy on margin, similar risk.
That said, many of these derivatives are completely faulty. The math, the model itself is faulty so why are they even allowed at all?
Do we build bridges with bad math? No, so why is it OK to have really bad financial engineering that puts the system at risk?
One problem with the Wall Street casino is that the Federal Reserve keeps them above water with their low interest rates. Time to cut Wall Street loose to float or sink from their actions.
I was waiting for this. Hopefully now that it's happening to lawyers with 6 figure law school debt they might take those newly minted law degrees and raise holy hell on labor arbitrage.
Bottom line every job that they can labor arbitraged, corporations are gunning for them.
Live in a world where the 'Good Jobs' belong to so very few. Work long long hours for the the same or less. What about outsourcing? Suppose you are the best of the best. Go to the best schools, go to even better graduate schools. What do your get?You will be in charge of out-sourced labor. Become a stranger in your own country.
Be objective on the metrics. In Tech today, (best the working stiiffs can hope for)
these are the metrics. Eighteen percent of Tech jobs will be held on shore, the rest off-shore. Worse sitll, the eighteen% on-shore are composed of 95 percent Visa Workers. So the real domestic percent is miniscule.
These 'standards' are held by the 'industry' as 'metrics', enforced by local Vendor Managment Offices, or what was once called the local Fascisti. In other words,as Voltaire said they are neither 'Holy, Roman or an Empire'.
South Asia has a U.S. domestic component of those who emigrate. The U.S. component is equally small the minuscule U.S. on-shore component. So when Obama proposes manufacturing expansion due to market forces, he also kills domestic tech workers with his expansion of Visa Workers. Yes, Virginia, there is a real Left.
The proposed manufacturing expansion happens at the time of sacrifice of tech workers.In the 80s, we were told not to fear the loss of steel and autos, because tech would fill the gap. Now that 6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, and tech domestic tech workers are reduced to less than 5 percent of the tech work force, we are told by to be happy. If this is happy, count me proud to be subversive.
This paragraph from the Bloomberg article gives the mechanics:
Figuring out how each one of these loopholes works is a major study and that's why lobbyists demand and write them into legislation. Takes forever to figure out how they even work.
Look at the news today, some ridiculous "Giving Pledge" where the oligarchs donate their wealth that they make through visa abuses, derivatives, insider information/deals, political corruption, crony capitalism, etc. But in order to varnish their images after destroying hardworking Americans and others across the globe, they donate money in their own names to charities, in addition to naming charities and foundations after themselves.
http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/2013/02/19/russian-oligarch-joins-u-...
Save the charitable donations and self-love, how about you don't steal or make the billions on the backs of struggling and utterly destroyed fellow citizens? How about Bill Gates, you let Americans actually find jobs in their own country and make enough to feed themselves and one or two kids without demanding even more cheap labor? How about the Oracle of Omaha doesn't have annual conventions to kiss his ass and avoids making billions on insider deals with Goldman and the US Government? These vultures get rich off the flesh of their own Nation and have the nerve to donate their ill-gotten wealth in their own names to make themselves appear benevolent. No more.
Oligarchs' charitable giving? Pablo Escobar also gave to certain segments of Colombia and made sure people knew who did it, did that erase his actions? But that use of wealth, power, and making sure people knew his name when the donations were made sure does have a familiar ring.
If the SEC manages to set a rule to limit derivatives, it appears there is a favorite court in D.C. which is more than willing to strike it down. Death by a 1000 cuts.
The millions of seniors that were booted out of the workforce as the economic recession began to squeeze businesses for profits is a study that I would love to see. Age descrimination is truly rampant. A once proud, hard working mass of seniors have been slaughtered in the last 5 years.
The sad fact is that older employees became the number one target when it became time to reduce a companys workforce. Most of these unemployed terminated seniors had great value regarding work ethic and skills. Then why would the older employee be cut of out of the work force.
Cold hard profits!!!
Age cannot be suspended or reversed. Data clearly reflects more health costs as a person enters their senior years. A high number of these senior employees had given their blood, sweat and tears to improve their skills and upward mobility within their company thus....they were among the higher paid employees within most companies. The EEOC of our government is a joke when it comes to enforcing age descrimination. Millions of us out here have had our pride and spirit severly damaged by their companys cunning and unlawful processes that were used for termination or layoff.
Our naivety that we would be treated fairly through these tough times was our largest mistake. The burden of proof has shifted to the employee to prove age descrimination. We did not see it coming. We had no idea our employer would be so ruthless and unerhanded in their tactics to avoid any age descrimination repercussion. We didn't carry a hidden voice recorder as our employer harassed us and made false accusations about our performance. We failed to collect documentation that would clearly show the employer using false and harassing tactics to build their case of termination. We were under the old patriotic mindset that the U.S.A. would never allow greedy Corporations to target the older generation knowing the they were the most vulnerable. Many of us have gone through the trauma and embarassment that we can no longer be the proud provider for our families and are beginning to get our spirit back. Our numbers are large...millions of us babyboomers! I for one will be involved in activities that will change the way our older generation is treated. Seniors are not dummies and we are not going to lay down and watch our country make a mockery of itself.
Yet more non-shocking, but completely repulsive news: these crooks aka "managers" and "best and brightest" are setting up reinsurance companies in Bermuda to help them avoid taxes in the US. The link's at the bottom.
Yes, that's right, hedge fund managers now of all a sudden are interested in the reinsurance game. The funny thing about that (besides the obvious fact that insurance used to have nothing to do with hedge funds and banksters) is that AIG was also a big reinsurance player, was actually involved in the game (not strictly for tax purposes), linked to Bermuda, and still faced destroying the entire global economy unless we, the taxpayers, bailed it out.
But now we have billionaire idiots that can't beat market indexes, earning billions in management fees, and are getting into "insurance" in tax havens for a very obvious purpose of avoiding US taxes. Oh, to top it off, their entry into the actual reinsurance game puts us all, again, at very real risk because INSURANCE and REINSURANCE aren't supposed to be tools for tax evasion, but are actually supposed to be safe, conservative backups when things go wrong for people and businesses that rely on it. No taxes, companies and individuals brazenly evading US taxes by setting up sham or legitimate companies meant solely to avoid taxes, money laundering?, and endangering the global economy once again. How are these not sham companies and transactions a la Enron and KPMG and Arthur Andersen? Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime, because close to 30 million of us here never evaded taxes, never laundered money, but we can't afford to feed ourselves or families and we're scum? Screw this circus, it's vomit-inducing.
And of course regulators, bankster-owned media, big law firms, politicians, and anyone else in the corruption game will say it's all legal and fine because of a "lack of clarity" or it's not illegal at the same time demanding less regulation and fewer laws and ethics because rules, laws, ethics, and enforcement only hurt tax-evading banksters and job killers. $1 billion? Damn, these assclowns begrudge people that want to earn $30,000, or $50,000, or $60,000 for jobs that actually help other people or create real value, but not paying $1 in taxes is too much for them?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/paulson-leads-funds-to-bermuda-...
Our esteemed politicians have essentially outsourced the middle class. The low end, high school educated blue collar workers, or whats left of them at least, are in a special protected class called Unions and still making a good living. But the white collar professional types, formerly making nice six figure salaries have been outsourced due to Nafta other new world order multinational agreements. They did everything they were supposed to - got into a good college, studied hard, and graduated with a difficult technical degree. But today its all for not. Engineers with 20 years experience are booted to the curb as their parent companies move work to China or India. I've heard stories through executive search firms of how highly educated and experienced professionals (Masters level and PhDs) simply cant find a job. These folks are in their prime earning years and should be contributing to the growth of the economy. Now they are relegated to working in Starbucks or Boston Market as managers. Where are the politicians fighting for them? Where are the sad news stories about a masters level educated mechanical engineer out of work for 4 years as his firm went global with its R&D department. As I see it, the unemployment jobs numbers are vastly worse than they are being reported by the media, as its now the media's job to clothe their emperor.
The only thing politicians care about are votes. If you aren't part of a constituent group then you might as well not vote because your vote doesn't count. Today, its the Democrats who are garnering votes en masse - the unions, minorites, illegal aliens - and these numbers are substantial enough (with the help of the media of course) to sway elections. Middle class Americans might as well forget about it, your politicians arent looking out for you, you're not part of a tightly shoehorned constituency class.
There is a cognitive dissonance between what i see and hear personally versus what is reported on tv. I simply cant watch the economic euphoria they report about and then talk to business owners and well paid professionals who simply cant make ends meet anymore. 10 years ago these folks would be buying boats and vacationing in Europe. Today we are worried about paying bills and saving for the kids college. Eventually something in the economy is going to break and this whole artificial economy the Fed has created is going to come crashing down. I just cant wait what excuse Obama and the media will create to blame it all on the House Republicans.
Regulators were so involved with Wall Street that possibly if lawsuits were filed in criminal court the regulators would also be found guilty. We need an independent commission and courts free of politics and corruption, but that is a dream.
This grumpy old Perotista didn't see the whole picture until recently. I was always culturally, conservative, fiscally libertarian, and suspicious of power in the hands of government or industry.
Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act didn't FORCE banks to lend to welfare queens. It was Classic Clinton - the deal looked like populism but favored condo flippers. Paul Harvey said in one of his last broadcasts - that of the 14 trillion in sub prime loans - a full 11trillion were the result of speculation. Again.... classic Clinton.
He's the one who brokered the meltdown and looting of America. That was followed by the abomination we know as the Bush/Cheney years.
I went to the polls those years to vote for fringe candidates and NO retain all judges.
When I finally voted Obama - it turned out to be date rape. I'm not gay or illegal l- so nothing for me or mine.
Just so you know - I am not a wage slave. This is the political point of view of a life long self employed Main St merchant. I've watched as malls hike rents on independents to subsidize this week's Anchor Blue or Shoe Pavillion - only to have those "national's go bankrupt.
Our entire way of life has been a lie. This corn fed boomer swallowed it whole - even as the lives of those around me followed the downward spiral of corporatism and police state tyranny.
I would call my politics now Anarchism. I root for bank robbers and cop killers... yes, I wanted Dorner to escape, if only to spotlight the pathology of those who gravitate to 'enforcement' work.
Not only are we prisoners to the "all war all the time" model, we must also be afraid of returning sociopaths - who now police our roads and airports.
So anybody who resists the multi national recipe for prosperity for the 1% - has few options to resist the tyranny.
And THIS is the rambling of a somewhat prosperous entrepreneur. I'm still standing - and my children are safely self employed in the economies of San Francisco and Denver.
If this 65 year old bedrock citizen roots for those who would burn the place to the ground.... what of the disposable worker?
Something to ponder as we await more heroes like Dorner.
If Glass-Steagall was in place and most importantly, they finally banned certain derivatives which clearly have contagion, system risk baked right into them in part due to faulty models (CDS), this disaster would have never happened.
This is not a business cycle, or normal ebb and flow, but a financial sector generated disaster which they actually lobbied Congress for and got around 2000.
It is astounding considering the damage done that these people were not tarred and feathered globally. They didn't even lose their jobs and they are busy setting up the same rigged house of cards again. They trashed the global economy for Christ sakes and "Dodd-Frank" is the result? Are you kidding me?
Henry Ford got it. $5/day was a revolution in wages back in 1914. It was the act of one corporatist who really started the ball rolling. He got one needed a middle class, disposable income to buy a car and that could only come from much higher wages.
Walmart started the race to the bottom on wages and it's no surprise the chickens have come home to roost. No union, no health care, making sure people work "32 hours" so they cannot get full-time status and benefits...
As we look at economic statistics everyday there is one thing that is really outrageous. Americans are viewed as consumers instead of producers. There is a disconnect in economic statistics on wages, income, wealth of the U.S. worker to consumer spending. Wall Street will bemoan when consumer spending drops and there will not be a word about wages, jobs, income for the American worker in their whine. Wall Street cheers when layoffs are announced, buys up more stock when companies offshore outsource.
In the future these times will be seen as a fantastic study in money controlling the debate. Banksters are deemed the "best and brightest" despite the endless failures and bailouts they require, to say nothing of their actual crimes. But anyone asking that money managers and CEOs that screw up, lose money, and need taxpayer $ to survive actually be held accountable, lose their jobs, and not earn such ridiculous sums of money are labeled "Commies," "hippies," and "lazy." Now this comes from people that were often born into wealthy and connected political circles that often feed at the government trough (e.g., political families that have endless generations in both D & R). But their families still deny cronyism and nepotism aid them.
Look at salaries. Banksters and their press always claim they deserve everything. If they get a bonus even though they screw up and destroy companies, it's because they deserve it. If they have jobs in which they get 4 weeks vacation and never break a sweat (literally), it's because they are so much smarter. If they earn $1 billion as fund managers, it's because they deserve it and are working "smarter."
Compare that to the minimum wage debate. Look at the wages needed to barely survive in cities across the country. At a bare minimum probably $12/hr. for one person living in hellhole apt. that excludes entire areas of the country that must be within walking distance of a job. But if he dares complain or people say the wage is too low, the response from the establishment/banksters is stop whining, get another job, work smarter/harder, work your way up. They honestly don't care that hours are purposely kept down to avoid benefits. That people can't get second jobs when their 1st job requires on-call commitments. That jobs that pay so little often cause injuries that bankrupt people with no benefits.That people didn't plan on working for less than $8/hr. when they invested their lives and time in Masters and PhDs. That someone didn't know they would be fired and be deemed "overqualified" at 40 when they got married and had one kid (yes, these folks actually bemoan people for having a kid and being unable to predict they would be unemployed at some point in life). That managers purposely fire people if they start making too much money or don't hire people that might rise in the ranks in the first place.
The message is the same - the banksters at the top are the best and brightest despite the fact they screw up, break laws, fail all the time, and need handouts from taxpayers. And the average person that wasn't born into connections and doesn't break laws or ever lobby Congress (even simple letters are ignored) is always lazy, always ignorant, always begging for handouts even when he/she literally collects nothing from the Government and can't convince anyone in power to care.
Tell a lie long enough and control entire media empires and people will start buying it, especially when the oligarchs do everything they can to keep people unemployed and desperate to survive.
We're finally seeing the endgame now. Walmart is shocked, shocked I tell you, by a dismal quarter. And of course the Walmart folks no doubt blame regulations or uncertainty. Of course they absolutely ignore the fact that a country where it's impossible for a massive % of people to find jobs, stay employed, and survive will, at some point, stop shopping. Pretty simple concept. But that will be ignored. It's always uncertainty, always too many taxes, profit issues (despite recent record profits by US companies), etc. Nope, "American" companies simply refuse to acknowledge that 28+ million people without jobs and no hope actually do affect the bottom line. And when those people don't earn money or enough to survive and the tax base disappears, then yes, Walmart at some point must face the obvious truth: corporate tactics destroy lives and the bottom line for companies too. Almost forgot, anyone in jail from Walmart for bribing Mexican officials?
I'm sure their corporations are trying to claim now Singapore is full of stupid, fat and lazy people, as they tell us here in America and that's the reason they must fire their citizens and replace them with foreign guest workers.
It is a global agenda, to labor arbitrage and displace, as well as a clear objective of India. They think labor arbitrage is "services" and displacing citizen workers is "trade". Trading people is not trade, unless one wants to look at the slave trade.
We can have millions protesting but it is to no avail. Remember the orchestrated shutdown of OWS?
Look at Singapore, a very, very tightly controlled dictatorship city-state. Folks out there are so pissed they are actually protesting (which is very dangerous to one's safety in most dictatorships). Oh, why are they pissed? Because they can't find jobs, there aren't enough jobs for citizens, and the government wants to import more foreign workers. But, but, but I thought only "racist" and "xenophobic" American citizens (not sure how people of all colors and histories can be deemed "racist" without justification, but why bother asking questions) cared about border control, illegals, and actually having jobs for local citizens. Nope, it seems border control, labor arbitrage, and governments actually serving the citizens of nations has nothing to do with racism and xenophobia, but actually has to do with governments looking out for their own citizens. Are the citizens of Singapore racist? Greece? Spain? America? Nope, Americans and Greeks and Spaniards and Singaporeans of all colors know their governments are supposed to serve them, and them alone. And it seems politicians around the world also swear oaths to the same effect. And all the BS one-world, elitism rules, banksters get rich while the 99% in every country get screwed is being called out for what it is, the rich and powerful screwing their own citizens and not batting an eye about it because they admit they are in it for profits and themselves only. So, do we as average Americans have more in common with the displaced and replaced Singaporeans and Greeks or with the folks in Congress and trading on insider information and making billions on Wall Street and in DC and every state capitol building?
Why just last week Lloyd Blankfein of Government Sachs or Goldman Sux was meeting with Obama and helping sell out American workers in the name of "immigration reform" and "fiscal cliff talks."
But I guess Goldman is still doing "God's Work" aka operating a criminal cartel. Because Goldman is connected to an account in Zurich that just got frozen by the SEC pending an investigation into insider trading. Apparently Goldman was recommending a "sell" to its clients on Heinz, when just before the Heinz merger, massive call options were purchased in a Zurich Goldman account.
Aren't the crimes by Goldman numbering in the hundreds or thousands by now? And yet they are still allowed to exist and conduct business and dictate our Nation's policies. What's crime and criminality anyway, it's all about $ and access and self-serving politicians getting rich (as yet another Congressman was busted for using $750,000 in campaign cash to buy all sorts of crap). Politicians and Wall Street - they never worry about anything even when they break laws and get rich at our expense. The only people suffering are the good, honest people that did everything they were supposed to. So why bother behaving anymore? Just get screwed in the end anyway unless . . .
This is more morphing of one type of derivative into another to avoid regulation and less margin requirements. It's akin to 1929 having margin accounts of 95%. People could buy stocks with 5% down and buy on margin, similar risk.
That said, many of these derivatives are completely faulty. The math, the model itself is faulty so why are they even allowed at all?
Do we build bridges with bad math? No, so why is it OK to have really bad financial engineering that puts the system at risk?
One problem with the Wall Street casino is that the Federal Reserve keeps them above water with their low interest rates. Time to cut Wall Street loose to float or sink from their actions.
I was waiting for this. Hopefully now that it's happening to lawyers with 6 figure law school debt they might take those newly minted law degrees and raise holy hell on labor arbitrage.
Bottom line every job that they can labor arbitraged, corporations are gunning for them.
Live in a world where the 'Good Jobs' belong to so very few. Work long long hours for the the same or less. What about outsourcing? Suppose you are the best of the best. Go to the best schools, go to even better graduate schools. What do your get?You will be in charge of out-sourced labor. Become a stranger in your own country.
Be objective on the metrics. In Tech today, (best the working stiiffs can hope for)
these are the metrics. Eighteen percent of Tech jobs will be held on shore, the rest off-shore. Worse sitll, the eighteen% on-shore are composed of 95 percent Visa Workers. So the real domestic percent is miniscule.
These 'standards' are held by the 'industry' as 'metrics', enforced by local Vendor Managment Offices, or what was once called the local Fascisti. In other words,as Voltaire said they are neither 'Holy, Roman or an Empire'.
South Asia has a U.S. domestic component of those who emigrate. The U.S. component is equally small the minuscule U.S. on-shore component. So when Obama proposes manufacturing expansion due to market forces, he also kills domestic tech workers with his expansion of Visa Workers. Yes, Virginia, there is a real Left.
The proposed manufacturing expansion happens at the time of sacrifice of tech workers.In the 80s, we were told not to fear the loss of steel and autos, because tech would fill the gap. Now that 6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, and tech domestic tech workers are reduced to less than 5 percent of the tech work force, we are told by to be happy. If this is happy, count me proud to be subversive.
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